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Jessica Young
Jessica Young is the first companion of The Reuben Roper Doctor (The Dark Doctor) in the fan film series by Imagine Productions History Jessica (or Jess) Young first appeared in the 2014 story Whispers, played by Kerry Ingram, and although this was her first on-screen appearance, she first met The Doctor after he had regenerated into his 13th incarnation (non-canon). At the time she was working for Brigadier Kate L. Stewart at the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce in 2011, appointed a few days after the London Riots (which reportedly had alien involvment). She, Kate, and The Doctor faced The White Shadows, cousins of The Vashta Nerada, beings who existed only in light with the power to inhabit and incinerate their victims. They had planned to turn Earth's sun into the source of their power, but The Doctor stopped them by creating an extra-long eclipse, making all natural light on Earth cease for only five minutes, drowning out the Shadows and exorcising them from Earth. Jess then asked The Doctor if she could acompany him on his travels, and after initially thinking it a bad idea, The Doctor welcomed her aboard. After many adventures after a number of years, including an adventure with multiple Doctors, The Doctor and Jess crash-landed on New York, 2020, after Jess out of panic pressed the emergency self-destruct button. The Doctor and Jessica walked to a hotel known as South Hill Park, to find a telephone, and was greeted by a mysterious receptionist. The Doctor tried to phone a previous incarnation of The Doctor, but go the timing wrong as they turned up 100 years too late. It was at this point that Kate Stewart was abducted from her own time and place and taken to the hotel. The hotel turned out to be a building stuck in a time loop, controlled by a man who once met the Doctor many years ago, but was failed to be saved by him. He had been abducting people's souls for years, until all you could hear of them would be their voices whispering out for someone to help them. These whispers would then acompany those kidnapped, rather like ghosts. It was the receptionist who kept all of the souls trapped, and once The Doctor, Kate, and Jess were able to negotiate with the man keeping the whispers trapped, and all were set free. By the end of the adventure, it seemed that all was put right. That was until The Doctor, Jess, and Kate were cornered by the dying receptionist, who was slowly losing her power. In a final act of rage, she tried to shoot The Doctor, only Jess jumped in the way of the blast to save him. She died in his arms, tears rolling down her cheek, telling The Doctor to 'be a good man'. After this, The Doctor was tortured by grief of losing his best friend for many years. Character Jessica was bubbly, clever (a Doctor of physics), funny, and had a geeky side. She was not afraid to stand up to anyone with a bad agenda, such as The Master or The Daleks, but also was able to take a step back when needed. Her and The Doctor were best friends, who had a friendly rivaly, and constantly joked that Jess was the brighter one out of her and The Doctor. She would run repairs on the TARDIS console and may have even been taught how to fly it. She also liked to create gadgets, such as a sonic modulator (previously seen in Torchwood: Fragments). Legacy For the rest of his time in The TARDIS, The Doctor that she travelled with constantly missed her, and was very depressed after her death. He constantly talked about her to anyone willing to listen, and each companion onwards knew how special she was to him. He also had a picture of the both of them at Tiaanmaart which sat on The TARDIS console, and kept the Abercrombie & Fitch top that hung on the hatstand in the console room, along with a long multi-coloured scarf and panama hat. Behind The Scenes After being delivered the script for Whispers from Frankie Pugh, casting was up to Reuben Roper and Aaron Cilia of AC Productions. Mutual friend of Reuben, Kerry Ingram, who had appeared in Game Of Thrones and Doctor Who, had met Reuben (who was a fan of her work) and had talked about the series. After hearing that she'd be interested to play a character for an episode, Reuben got Frankie to write the character of Jessica Young, the first ever companion of The Dark Doctor. When hearing that Kerry was coming to film, Reuben was overjoyed, and quickly worked hard with Aaron Cilia to up their standards, switching from a small hand-held camcorder to a more professional TV camera, and also making a TARDIS console prop in the space of a day.Kerry filmed her scenes for Whispers within two days, and also filmed a special Christmas message with Roper and K9 in The TARDIS to wish the viewers a happy noel. Reuben described the time he had with Kerry in a live video. "Oh, she was very professional, and a fantastic actress, but she had a wicked sense of humour. I remember having her come to a birthday party, and we were sat round the firepit and she was telling us all jokes, stories of nightmare auditions, gay directors, annoying co-stars, and she kept everyone throuroughly entertained. It was at that exact moment that I thought 'we've found our new guest star' ". A year and a half later, Reuben planned to bring the character of Jess Young back for an audio series explaining how she and The Doctor met, called 'Doctor Who - The Lost Stories - Volume One'. But when Kerry proved unavailable, it was up to Reuben to cast a new Jess Young. "I was in a play called The Edelweiss Pirates and I was working alongside a friend of mine, Ellie Goddard. Fab actress. We were rehearsing this argument scene, and she got right in my face, and I shouted back at her, and I suddenly had flashbacks of me and Kerry playing The Doctor and Jess arguing over the self-destruct button, and I suddenly realised 'She sounds like Kerry. She looks like Kerry! She's pretty much the spitting image of Jess Young when she was in Whispers!' and I thought, if Kerry can't make it, we could just recast. Loads of shows do it. And it would work extreemly well on audio especially. Because Ellie actually went to school with Kerry, they went to Redroofs, and they had spoken many times, and Ellie is fantastic at mimicking, so I asked her if she'd be interested, and she said yes, and now we're recording The Lost Stories. We have a new Jess Young!"